Professor Roderick Watkins DL

Roderick is Vice Chancellor of Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), a university of over 30,000 students, with campuses in Cambridge, Chelmsford, London and Peterborough.  ARU has a focus on social mobility and inclusive, professional education, and is currently a top 10 UK university for graduate employment, top 10 for social inclusion, and top 20 for ‘value added.’  He first joined ARU in 2014, as Pro Vice Chancellor and Dean of Arts, Law and Social Sciences, before being appointed Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research and Innovation) in 2015.  Prior to joining ARU, he was Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Canterbury Christ Church University.

Roderick’s academic background is as a composer with a particular interest in digital sound synthesis and the combination of acoustic and synthetic timbres, and his compositions have been performed and broadcast across Europe and the UK.  In other roles he is a Director of Cambridge Ahead, Cambridge Network, the ARC Universities Group and University Alliance, and a Governor at the College of West Anglia.

Roderick was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire in 2021.